A New Kind Of Evolution
The socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 will be the subject of countless analyses for years to come. People will have masters and PhD’s in the subject and government think tanks will be ruminating on the widespread damage it caused.
But, my observation is that this is a coin which has two sides.
I think that if we can turn that coin to the other side and make out the lettering upon it, then there is potentially as much weight in the positive as there is in the negative.
*However, before I do that, I want to I pay my respects to the countless workers both in the health/medical/scientific fields as well as all those working in support of helping us through, from school teachers to supermarket staff. It has already been written on Social media that the true heroes of this crisis won’t be in superhero costumes, or olympic level athletes.
To all those people I am thankful and grateful for you.
Also for all those who pass on ahead of their time and for their loved ones and friends, I am sorry. May you be at peace, and have love and joy return to your life soon.
the other side of the coin
For this article I am going to present the case for the positive opportunities I am seeing in front of us in spite of our circumstances. I’ll also outline what I am personally doing and what is working well for me that you may like to try.
This is the other side of the coin of which I spoke. It’s part observation and part us being forced into evolving our ways.
But, maybe this is how evolution works for us now. Globally we are being forced into a new way of being, albeit temporarily (but we’ll see about that). Humans are THE adaptive species in the world. If there is anyone that can, we can. Now is a good time for many to look at how this situation presents to us that opportunity.
All around us, commutes are coming to an end, families are becoming closer, air pollution is lowering, the value of nature and the outdoors is rising. Corporate businesses will soon be wondering if they ever needed a building just as big as the one they used to use.
“Our great opportunity is that it’s finally time to bring health home”
We’re making do with what we have, buying more consciously AND my favourite of all, health is finally being brought home.
Literally, people are realizing that their health is now their responsibility. It’s no longer time to wait for a tablet, or let something get so bad that we have to go to the ER.
ER right now is a crowded space that may harbor a greater risk than solution to people’s circumstances, and so the actual solution we are faced with now is this:
Do what you can to NOT get sick.
YES! THAT
The biggest realisation of our current time might just be that we all have a part to play in keeping our own health up, not delegating that responsibility to a doctor or an overwhelmed health service when we let things go on and on until something breaks..
To me this now includes our physical and our mental health. We have to bring health home, lead from the front in our households and communities. Evolve into a healthier, well-balanced population that are less sick and more hygienic.
That is less medically dependant and more vigorous, physically able and independent.
A species evolves when it has to
How many times in business or otherwise have you heard? “because that’s the way we’ve always done it”.
Our routine has officially been interrupted. There is not now a we’ve always done it this way option in front of us and that is a very good thing because it affords us the opportunity to pause, think and plan a better way. A healthier, more productive, sensible way. It can be just as results driven as we are accustomed to because we are an innovative and clever species. And a species evolves when it has to.
In strength training we talk about the cycles of stress recovery and adaptation. The stress is the disrupting event (our workout) we then take a day or more off the gym to recover and come back adapted, stronger and ready to progress.
The stress is now us being moved into our new circumstances. Many of us now have the time to adjust to this, and adapt. To embrace and come out better for it.
And make no mistake, strength and health are directly correlated. Therefore now is a time to move towards physical and mental strength, adapt to our new circumstances and look at how we can become better in each and every way.
The very best metric for your own personal evolution is this. Whatever you need to work on, will now be presented to you:
Need to get past ordering takeaways 4 times a week? – They are now closed.
Need to learn to cook from scratch and didn’t have time before? – Done.
Need to spend less time on the commute and more time on outdoor family walks? – Hello woodlands.
Need to make time to talk to your family or say something important to your loved ones? – You get the picture.
And then there is this.. This past week people have stopped ordering takeaways and started ordering home gym equipment. Health is being brought home, literally.
My home gym set up, using a Bodymax CF415 rack, B+ R 2.0 Rogue barbell and assorted trip grip plates. A home barbell set up doesn’t take up much space or need much equipment at all.
“I knew something was up when people stopped ordering takeaways and start ordering home gym equipment”
Science fiction to science fact
When something grips us on a world-wide scale it’s easy to slide into an apocalypse mindset. I’ve seen a fair few apocalypse movies in my time, and as I went out walking in the woods the other day I realised that whereas the human mind affords us cognitive thinking on unprecedented levels of creativity, it also represents a trapdoor.
Our creative mind can find our solutions but also worry us to hell with visualising problems.
We can turn our houses into echo chambers with the 24 hour news blasting, social media ranting debates plus endless back and forth worry-mongering. However the science fiction of the the thing is not turning out to be the science fact of it.
Our buildings still stand, art still hangs in galleries, and the birds are still singing.
The scientific fact is that we now bring to bear the full weight of a global scientific community that is extremely motivated to fix this problem.
I now tune into a once daily report on the BBC at 5pm from government and scientific advisors to hear what is actually happening. But only this; I don’t spend the rest of my day allowing here-say and rumours to worry, stress and misinform me.
The result being that I know what I need to know, but lose none of my bandwidth to silly bulls***
Some months ago I cleared up my relationship with social media in general after reading Matt Haig’s excellent book Notes on a Nervous Planet.
What is my part to play in all this?
Delivering my wellbeing talk Healthy Ageing is Strong Ageing
My profession is strength coaching. In the past 12 months I’ve extended that to contemplate stress reduction among other things.
Overall, I summarise what I do as helping people become strong and healthy. In order for me to do that I have and must continue to lead from the front.
These may be difficult times ahead, but strength training conditions us to do difficult things. It doesn’t just build firm toned bodies, it makes for strong minds. I’ve seen increases in confidence in people and their ability to cope; useful skills to have at times like these.
It is in this way that I am supporting my community of podcast listeners, article readers, and coaching clients. I plan now to do more of what I was doing before. I am setting out not to survive life, but make the most of it.
In this time of restriction here is a list of things I am doing that feels liberating. These things are making social distancing and this new way of life not only bearable but enjoyable. Take from them what you will, I hope they help you too:
Routine. Very early on I decided to settle into a daily routine that would bring me consistency and contribute to feeling fulfilled. I rise daily (around 6 a.m) and go to bed at around the same time (10 p.m), take breaks and have meals at usual times during my working day. This consistency helps me pace out the day. The result of doing this combined with my daily to do list, means the days go by pretty darn quick and do not drag. Importantly, the to do list helps me to not get bored, and I am still only watching a bit of television in the evenings, not throughout the day.
Challenging Physical Training. I’d invested in a home gym years ago as I felt I was losing too much time in rush hour traffic and queueing already at gyms, so this was not a new step for me. My home gym set up is a basic barbell set up that allows complete full body strength training to take place. This training adds to consistency and also reduces my psychological stress. Since Coronavirus became news I have been carrying on with my usual programme and making some new personal records in my lifts which has added to a feeling of confidence in my body even more.
Healthy Eating. Again not a new one, but plays a part in overall health and I suspect psychological health too. I was relieved when visiting supermarkets that plenty of fresh ingredients still remain.
Woodland Walks. As the noise of social media and fear gets turned up, I have decided to turn up the sound of calm. For me this includes a daily walk outdoors. I used to just do this a couple of times a week as needed, but now each of my work days rounds out with a woodland walk and an inspiring podcast. On that note, I am enjoying Glenn Ambrose’s Life Lessons and Laughter.
Investing in Happiness. This requires actually putting time into being happy. Think of it like a relationship with your partner. You need to build in tokens of affection, flowers, planning for weekends away and such. Happiness needs energy putting into it, we could also pair it in that sense with self-love. I am finding that being happier in general and taking care of myself is making it more possible to navigate through the pandemic. As such I surround myself with the right kind of things and dial down things that are the opposite. I’ve used mindfulness mediation in the past, and my outdoor walks are similar to that however I also practice indoor meditation from time to time. It’s a good addition anyway and an alternative if the weather becomes poor.
In addition to the scientific guidelines on how to not catch the virus the above points are what I am doing to not get sick. And I mean sick of any kind, including high blood pressure, back pain, heart disease, mental sickness and everything else.
All of the above things are making my home a healthier one.
To see what a difference it makes, try some or all of them and bring health home to you and your family.